We recently connected with Arcadio Lombardo and have shared our conversation below.
Arcadio, so glad you were able to set aside some time for us today. We’ve always admired not just your journey and success, but also the seemingly high levels of self-discipline that you seem to have mastered and so maybe we can start by chatting about how you developed it or where it comes from?
Well, It was a journey. They say that at the Conservatory they don’t teach you how to master an instrument, but how to become master of yourself. That is a true, in a way I would never imagined. When you study with someone, you are lead to achieve small goals, and every time you are successful at one you pass at the next. Little goal after little goal, you start to get a big picture, but it’s just really a miniature in regards of what a human being can achieve. The moment you are no longer under the guide of another master, it became your responsibility to set on some goals and focus on those. It’s not easy if your ambition is quite high, you can be overwhelmed and actually every time after the end of a Conservatory course or academy, I felt really depressed, because It doesn’t seems to me to be anywhere near where I wanted to be technically. It really required quite some years, to understand where I wanted to be and that a huge self-discipline was the only way. It was really the result of a huge discomfort.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I’m a guitarist, composer, and musical producer and every time people ask me “What genre do you play?”, I Answer “I don’t know, maybe all of them!” ahah. My musical journey is about that, finding always new exciting things to play and always trying to mix new stuff and influences and listen how the results can be very very different each time. I play extended range guitars, wich have more strings than usual and can be tuned lower. I have two degrees at Conservatory, one in jazz guitar, and one in classical composition, if you listen to my stuff you wouldn’t probably guess any of that. I currently produce and play guitar in a band called “Fenrir’s children” and I have a solo project that I am developing. I also work as a digital turnist on Fiverr to offer my services worldwide.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The first is probably reading music. I started reading music when I was 16 years old, and is a skill that I actively and passively improved for 15 years. It’s just not about reading someone’s music or yours, It’s about knowing the basic mechanism of how music works. I couldn’t do any of what I do without.
The second is “don’t follow trend”. This could be anti intuitive, but you can’t expect to follow trends and have the same brilliant results of everybody out there, You just will be another one of the multitude who does the same thing.
Third is a wide imagination. Self explanatory, maybe? No, really, if you want to create music or any art and develop your own style, you can’t do it if you don’t keep alive that imagination thing, you need to be able to get lost in your mind to find something really unique.
What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?
Knowing how a guitar really works in depth. That was like an aleatory subject between colleagues and masters. It was like a mystery that only luthiers understand truly while guitarists only have to think on how to play. I decided to overcome that barrier and It was one of the best choices I have ever made, it unlocked so many layers of explorations, capabilities and so on. I am currently building my first guitar from scratch, and I feel like is one of those huge goal that will lead to numerous achievements.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arcadiolombardo?igsh=a2V3Y2wyNWp3cWhy
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Arcadiolombardo6
Image Credits
Juni Villarmonte, Alessandro Cerioni
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